Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon

Gibbs, George, 1815-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
101K words
Chapters
11

Tags

English Originals Language and Writing Anthropological StudyLexicographyLanguage LearningLanguage ContactTrade LanguageNative North AmericansExotic CultureCultural ChangeFolk CustomsCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon by George GibbsAuthor: Gibbs, George, 1815-1873,Language: English, Class: PM: Language and Literatures: Indigenous American and Artificial Languages, Release Date: Apr 20, 2005

Editor's review

Compiled by George Gibbs, A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon is a valuable historical document for the study of the trade language of the North American Pacific Northwest. Chinook Jargon was a contact language that emerged in the nineteenth century among the multi-ethnic populations of the Oregon region; the dictionary not only records vocabulary but also reflects the complex picture of colonial trade, indigenous language contact, and cultural exchange. Arranged alphabetically, with concise definitions and accompanying instructions for use, it serves as a primary source for linguistic anthropology, contact linguistics, and the history of the North American frontier. Chinese readers should have some command of English and are advised to read the entries against the historical and geographical background of the region in order to understand the contexts in which they arose. As a public-domain e-book with a clear text and easy access, it is an indispensable basic reference for the study of trade languages and language contact.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the preface and instructions for use to understand the compilation background and the phonetic notation.
  2. Consult entries in thematic or alphabetical batches, using a map to follow the distribution of tribes and trading posts.
  3. Read alongside ethnographic accounts of contemporaneous indigenous languages of North America to understand shifts in meaning.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
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FAQ

Is this book suitable for beginners learning Chinook Jargon from scratch? Not really. This is a historical dictionary with definitions chiefly in English and no systematic grammar instruction or pronunciation guidance. Beginners who wish to learn the language should first acquire basic knowledge of contact linguistics and use this as a reference tool rather than an introductory textbook.
Is Chinook Jargon a real language? Chinook Jargon is a trade contact language, not the mother tongue of any ethnic group. It formed in the multilingual trading environment of the nineteenth-century North American Pacific Northwest, drawing its vocabulary from diverse sources and with relatively simplified grammar; it is a classic specimen for the study of language contact and pidgin phenomena.
What background knowledge is needed to read this dictionary? A basic ability to read English reference works is advisable, along with some knowledge of the geography and colonial trade history of the North American Pacific Northwest. A basic understanding of language contact and the mechanisms of pidgin formation will help in grasping the social contexts and linguistic mixing behind the entries.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gibbs, George, 1815-1873 Author · American · 1815–1873

George Gibbs (1815–1873) was an American ethnologist and geologist known for his documentation and study of Native American languages. He focused on the Pacific Northwest, and his representative works include Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon and Alphabetical Vocabularies of the Clallum and Lummi. The former organizes and explains the Chinook Jargon used for trade communication, while the latter presents alphabetical vocabularies of the Clallam and Lummi languages, leaving first-hand materials for linguistic anthropology. His writing emphasizes practical documentation and vocabulary compilation, with plain language and clear organization. Public information on his life, such as education and specific posts, is limited and difficult to detail; even so, these two works alone show his contribution to preserving Native American language materials, and his results are still consulted by researchers in ethnology and linguistics.